Individual Details

February 22, 2003 at 22:54:16 CST Samuel Brodt
Poster: D. G. Brode

I believe that this was the Samuel BRODT born in 1726 in Lixheim, Alsace-Lorraine, the son of Paul BRODT (b. 1676) and Maria RIEGER. (They had married in 1722). Paul Brodt's father was Simon BRODT (1649-1681) who was the Burgomaster of Lixheim.
The Brodts are thought to be a family originally of Swiss origin who established themselves in Lixheim, Lorraine in about 1608. As Lixheim was predominately Calvinist, it is believed that the Brodts were most likely from the Canton of Bern which was more influenced by John Calvin due to its proximity and political relationship with French-speaking Calvinist Geneva. The rest of the Protestant cantons were more Zwinglian Protestant.
At the time immediately prior to the Brodts departure from Switzerland, German-speaking Switzerland was comprised of seven Catholic cantons (Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Lucerne, Zoug, Solothurn and Fribourg) and four reformed Protestant cantons (Zurich, Bern, Basle and Schaffhouse). After the intitial Protestant gains in the country, the Catholic Counter-Reformation attempted to reconvert the citizenry. Also at that same time, the Dukes of Savoy began a prolonged offensive against Geneva and Bern, which drove the Protestant cantons uncomfortably into an alliance with (Catholic) France. This religious and political instability spurned on some of the Brodts to locate a more secure German-speaking Protestant country.
Apparently, the Brodts were drawn to Lixheim due to the fact that the rulers of the Palatinate - of which Lixheim was then a part - had adopted Calvinism in the 1560s under Elector Frederick III. Thereinafter, the Palatinate had become the bulwark of the Protestant cause in Germany. Count Palatine Frederick IV became the head of the Protestant military alliance known as the Protestant Union in 1608. The territory of Lixheim was created by the Count Palatine about the time of the Brodts arrival in 1608. It was a place of religious refuge for Protestants. (Unfortunately, many French Huguenots were drawn to the region at the same time also in search of religious freedom. This caused the region to slowly drift ethnically and liguistically towards France).
Frederick IV's son Frederick V's acceptance of the Bohemian crown in 1619 contributed to the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, a war that proved disastrous to the Palatinate. Frederick V was driven from Bohemia in 1620 and, in 1623, was deprived of his German lands and electoral dignity, which were given to Bavaria. Catholic troops devastated the Rhenish Palatinate (including Lixheim). The Peace of Westphalia (1648) restored the Rhenish Palatinate - but not the Upper Palatinate which was retained by Bavaria - to Frederick's son Charles Louis.
During the War of the Grand Alliance (1689–97), the troops of the French monarch Louis XIV ravaged the Rhenish Palatinate, causing many Germans to emigrate. Many of the early German settlers of America were refugees from the Palatinate and were referred to as the "Pennsylvania Dutch". The Palatinate's lands on the west bank of the Rhine including Lixheim were gradually incorporated into France which drove the remaining Brodts either to America or into the Palatinate's eastern lands which thereafter divided largely between neighbouring Baden and Hesse. To this day, many Brodts reside both in the Bern region of Switzerland and in Hesse.

Birth	24 FEB 1725 or 1726	Germany
Marriage		Maria Salome STECKEL

Spouse	Maria Salome STECKEL ( - )
Child	Samuel BRODE/BRODT (1767 - )